BRIEFLY : HALL OF FAMERS AID `SHOELESS' JOE CAUSE.

Byline: Daily News Wire Services

Baseball greats Ted Williams and Bob Feller have petitioned the baseball commissioner's office to clear the late ``Shoeless'' Joe Jackson's name and make him eligible to join them in the Hall of Fame.

``I want baseball to right an injustice,'' Williams said in a statement supporting a petition he and Feller have submitted to baseball's acting commissioner, Bud Selig, and the National Baseball Hall of Fame at Cooperstown, N.Y. ``That's wrong . . . and baseball shouldn't tolerate injustice.''

Jackson and seven Chicago White Sox teammates were accused of trying to throw the 1919 World Series.

They were acquitted in court but banned from organized baseball. Though Jackson admitted his part in the so-called ``Black Sox'' scandal to a grand jury, he later recanted and swore his innocence until his death in 1951.

Left-hander Rich Robertson, who pitched for the Minnesota Twins from 1995 to 1997, has signed a 1998 minor-league contract with the Angels.

Mark Clark and Kevin Foster, two-fifths of the Chicago Cubs' starting rotation, agreed to one-year contracts and avoided salary arbitration.

Other players who avoided arbitration by signing include pitcher Bobby Witt, who accepted a one-year, $3.25 million contract with the Texas Rangers; shortstop Royce Clayton, who got a $3.5 million, one-year deal from the St. Louis Cardinals, and infielder Keith Lockhart, one of four remaining arbitration-eligible players on the Atlanta Braves, who agreed to a $700,000, one-year contract.

Toronto first baseman Carlos Delgado had arthroscopic surgery on his injured right shoulder and will miss the first two months of the season.

The Cincinnati Reds plan to retire the uniform numbers of Joe Morgan, Frank Robinson and the late Ted Kluszewski.

BASKETBALL: Charlotte Hornets center Vlade Divac, bothered in recent days by pain and instability in his left knee, is scheduled for surgery today that could sideline him for two months. He has damaged cartilage in the joint.

ETC: The University of Nebraska named Memorial Stadium's playing field ``Tom Osborne Field'' in honor of their retiring football coach, the school said. . . . Jackie Joyner-Kersee, three-time Olympic gold medalist who is in her final year of competition, has become a player agent. . . . Central Florida football coach Gene McDowell is resigning because of fallout from a cellular-phone scandal involving team members, according to a television report. . . . University of Idaho athletic director Oval Jaynes is leaving after 15 months on the job to accept a similar position at the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga.